


Mosaic

by M_arahuyo



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Dissociation, Drama, Drugging, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, I love alt-j, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Torture, Psychological Conditioning, Psychological Trauma, Slavery, Slow Burn, Suicidal Ideation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-11-28 13:39:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11419131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M_arahuyo/pseuds/M_arahuyo
Summary: When you are taken, when you are stripped and sliced andopened–when you are torn apart and put back together in that not-quite-together way that feels like a piece isn't where it should be, or they've used too much glue or too little, or they've madesomething elseentirely.When you are no longer who you are, everything blurs together. Everything becomes nothing.





	1. Intro

Everything blurs together when there are no lines. 

Colors, for instance– _art_ has lines. Drawn to separate shades from shades, turned into shapes that speak of something. Show heart and soul and emotion and _beauty_ , an artist dares to hope. Take away the lines and colors bleed into each other, blur and blend, turn into ones with names and others without. Incomprehensible on canvass, ambiguous.

Take morals, right from wrong. Upbringing, safe from unsafe. Education, logical from illogical, fault and consequence. Friend from enemy. Comfort from pain. _Real_ from _not real._ Remove the lines and they all tessellate, collapse into a useless mass of gray.

Or a burning building.

Or a hole between the eyes of a Russian armaments magnate refusing Talon's requests of a liaison and resources.

Or a screaming daughter slipping on the blood of her own mother.

 _Or_ a husband dead on the mattress, eyes close to popping out of his skull, face purple and lips cracking, a thin coil tight around his neck to the point of drawing blood– _is that her doing what has she done why did she–_

Everything. Blurs together. When there are. No lines.

It's like seeing nothing and everything at the same time. Like not feeling and feeling everything, the panic and the pain, the hopelessness and brokenness and _the white hot fury, the pulsing beast in her chest and lower, the thing they call_ Amélie _with the glee of spectators watching an idiot animal chase its own tail–_

They call the tamed thing _Widowmaker._ The thing above the mess of the gray mosaic that only sees black. Only sees enemy and threat and target. They put a gun in her hand and medications in her mouth, under her skin, _her brain_ to let her see the lines they want her to see.

The medications help her relax. Slow her heart, control the hormones to mere trickles and mute unneeded neurotransmitters until she can't even feel her own fear as she stares down the barrel of a pulse gun. A blue dot glows at the very end of it, she observes with fascination. A knee is pressed up between her breasts, right at the length of bone where her ribs meet. A subtle burning materializes where the offending joint presses down, harsh. She hisses and leaves the blue dot be to look above the barrel of the gun.

Enemy. Threat. Target. Tracer glares at her from behind her stupid orange goggles and her lip wobbles, the skin skirting her jaw flexing. The wounds from Mondatta are still fresh and Widowmaker finds herself. Smiling. Laughing under her breath.

"What's so funny?" Tracer demands, the palm to the side of Widowmaker's head curling into a fist. She presses her pistol flush against Widowmaker's chin. "You want _funny?_ How's about I show you a spider-woman without a jaw? I bet someone like _you_ would find that funny."

And she would, actually. So much so that she feels a kick inside her ribs and a buzz at the top of her head, and grins.

Tracer doesn't have the time to recover from her own shock that Widowmaker is able to grasp her knee. She heaves Tracer off and whirls upward, mechanical pieces of vertebrae unlocking to accommodate the ridiculous twist of her torso. They lock back upright as she straightens, thigh muscles coiling, prosthetic calves hissing with steam and she charges at Tracer with a shoulder blade hitting the soft belly just below the steel of an accelerator. Tracer wheezes and falls backward. Widowmaker steals the opportunity to grab Tracer's leg, hefting it up, one knee flat on the accelerator.

"That would be funny indeed, _chérie,_ " she enunciates, soft and menacing, eyes glinting. Her grin becomes nothing but a bare of teeth. "But _this_ is funnier."

Tracer looks at her, collected and controlled enough to scowl with a wobbling lip. "Yeah, I could probably figure why you'd think that, you kinky little shite."

Widowmaker doesn't laugh. There wasn't much humor in Tracer's venom anyway.

"Do you even know what you've done?" she continues when Widowmaker doesn't say anything back. Doesn't even move, really. "Do you know... do you know how many people were looking up to Mondatta? Hoping for the peace? Standing up and stood up to back him and his cause _and you..._ "

"Killed him," Widowmaker supplies easily. The pain in Tracer's eyes is thick, molasses spilled on the floor and gathering insects. The way Tracer's gaze on her changes is making her inexplicably angry, for whatever reason. Her head is pounding with the feeling that _should not_ be there. "Dying is a fact of life, no? I don't understand what you're so upset about, _non_ , I really don't. People get murdered all the time. Mondatta: if not by me, then by someone else, surely."

But, she's glad it was her. Her smile is enough to express it.

Tracer's eyes get glassy and she blinks thrice in succession before she must realize it's pointless. She closes them entirely. "Why did you do it?"

Widowmaker is quiet, keeping a vacant stare at Tracer. The hand on Tracer's calf squeezes until the fingers curl into claws. Tracer has asked this once already, once upon a time on a rooftop in the night. Widowmaker has ignored this, laughed at this once already, once upon a time, pinned under Tracer and her glower. She does it again this time.

She doesn't know. She almost never finds out, at that. She just takes the gun and takes the medications because it's so _good_ , so good to not feel anything instead of feeling everything all at once and just breathe and shoot and _kill_.

"Amélie," Tracer repeats, pleading, voice cracking. "Why did you do it? Amélie–"

Something in Widowmaker's chest unfurls, rears back, baring its teeth. She feels her pulse race and her ears ring and the breathtaking pain starting to spread from where her heart is, trying to beat at a pace it isn't supposed to. " _Do not call me that,_ " she hisses, squinting, two breaths coming out of her loudly before she could stop them. " _Never_ call me that."

"But that's your name, innit, love? It's your name, that's what you were called before–"

Widowmaker growls with the anger that is not hers and slaps her other hand to Tracer's knee, clawing. "Quiet," she warns, and she should just do it. Should have done it. Sunk a bullet into Tracer's skull, broken those goggles, stained her hair red. But the thing that is not Widowmaker is screaming and the colors are swirling, choking her, blinding her, and she makes an inhumane sound as she twists Tracer's calf and dislocates the knee.

Tracer screams. An explosion sounds behind them, floors below, and a loud crackle comes from somewhere on Tracer's wrist. " _Winston!_ " she's shouting, pushing Widowmaker off to clutch her leg. There's the telltale buzz of her accelerator priming and Widowmaker turns to dash away.

A migraine materializes on Widowmaker's temples. The cramping in her chest intensifies but it's bearable, bearable enough that she can drop to a slide just as pulse rounds glide overhead. She snatches Widow's Kiss off the ground. Her feet hit the ledge and she vaults up, leaping over to the next building in a continued sprint.

She hears yelling. Explosions. Overwatch operatives shrieking in panic and the crackle of her own comm coming to life. The buildings looming on either side of her path feel like they're curling, caving in on her. Taunting her and trapping her. Her fists are tight, trembling. " _Come in, Widowmaker. Widowmaker, respond._ "

"Widowmaker," she confirms in a hiss. The other line goes quiet for the briefest moment.

" _Payload secured. Extraction on its way to your location. Coming in hot in fifteen seconds._ "

She doesn't feel relief when the comm crackles dead and wind rushes at her violently from ahead, a helicopter coming to view, all sleek blacks and a red insignia. Only feels a blinding headache and fires licking in her chest as she raises her hand. Her grapple finds its mark, latching onto the side. The helicopter tilts and drags her with it as it catches more air.

"Amélie!" someone shouts. "Amélie!" _Amélie Amélie Amélie_ and she snarls, feet leaving the concrete, pulled airborne by the helicopter. She twists as her visor slides over her face and shoots at Tracer who merely blinks off the bullet's path.

She takes another shot–another, another, and she misses, _doesn't know why she misses_ because she isn't supposed to miss. She bares her teeth at no one and swallows back a scream that isn't hers. " _We're pulling you up,_ " says the voice on her comm and her grapple line is being yanked up. Her visor slides off, back in its place. Tracer is a blurred blob of yellows and oranges on the rooftops, watching. 

 

* * *

 

They have gurneys ready for the lucky few Talon operatives who managed to hop on with extraction. Medics in white and red flock to them as they land and all at once, Widowmaker hears pained groaning and whimpering, bodies slumping and gurney wheels squeaking off and away. She stands still, looking down at the spot between her feet. The only reason she isn't slouching is because the lock of artificial vertebrae is keeping her from doing it.

A couple more seconds and _there's_ hers, more an operating table than it is a gurney. Two medics wheel it up, a steel table slanted at a 45 degree angle with restraints at the wrists and ankles. She keeps staring at the same spot on the floor, lets Talon grunts take Widow's Kiss from her and detach her visor. They don't even wait for her to be fully strapped on before shoving medication into her mouth, eliciting an irritated growl. They force her to swallow by clutching her jaw shut.

"Now now." A deep, rumbling voice, and something like soft, torn fabric brushing lightly against her knuckles before it vanishes. She opens her eyes, squints at the ivory of a mask and the hollows supposed to be its eyes. "Upright, now, upright. At attention."

She shifts, a ridiculous attempt at straightening with her restraints on. Reaper hums. Doesn't laugh at least.

"Report?"

"Payload was secured. Now en route to intended dropoff. Overwatch operatives appeared on the scene but were ultimately outnumbered. Agents in action were identified to be callsign Pharah, callsign Mercy, Winston, Genji Shimada, Jesse McCree, and callsign Tracer."

Reaper hums again. Widowmaker is still squinting at him and he keeps staring at her. He trusts her conditioning enough at this point that he doesn't double check with the Squadron Leader standing next to him. "You didn't get any of them?" he asks, playful disappointment coloring his tone.

Widowmaker tries to glower. She doesn't know if she succeeds.

Her visor is handed over to Reaper who lifts it to his face, studies it. A tiny beeping sounds before the click of a memory chip ejecting halts it. "Didn't get any of them, or let them get away?"

Widowmaker bristles. Or bristles as much as she _can_ bristle in her state. She opens her mouth, tries to tell him about Jesse McCree, about the wound on his stomach spreading into a great, red flower as he gurgled and panicked and _she laughed._  About Mercy's fear and determination to tend to multiple injured allies. "Mort... mort _uh_... morta... l _ly_ wou _nded..._ "

Her vision gets hazy, cloudy, her jaw loose and feels filled with cotton. Reaper is a black blur that whirls toward someone nearby. "You couldn't wait un _til later to administer sedatives?_ "

"Her heart rate was fas _ter than what should be norm_ al, sir, _we needed to calm her down._ "

"I _t's normal after a mission, isn_ 't i _t?_ "

Widowmaker thinks she laughs at the way Reaper snaps at whoever that is. Her hands loosen on either side of her. Her head lolls. Noises and colors and sensations blur together like cotton, like syrup, like goo dragging her lower and lower and the world fades out. 

 

The light from the screen is bright. The room around her is awash with glows of gold, of gray, of red: explosions and steel breaking, concrete cracking, and blood and viscera and a man she recognizes as a target back in Rio de Janeiro flops back, a spiderweb of blood and broken glass rising where his head slams against.

Another one she recognizes, a woman this time, in business casual and flanked by two omnic brutes. She pauses on her way inside the American Embassy to Dubai and makes small talk with a portly man in a gray suit. Widowmaker's hand twitches as if on reflex. The woman staggers backward and collapses, a pool of red spreading by her head.

Widowmaker feels a giggle vibrate in her throat, pleasant buzzing going from the top of her head down to her tailbone. She blinks, twitches, breathes. Dopamine and adrenaline have her eyes dilated to nothing but black.

Behind the screen, something moves behind the thick observation glass panel. Widowmaker's eyes flicker to follow the movement before they're drawn back to the screen. 

A man again, face almost filling the screen as if the camera was right there, in front of him–like she was _right there, in front of him,_ on top of him, straddling him. A thin, black cord is pressed down on his throat and he's thrashing, eyes wide, gasping, hands jostling where the camera is settled. He's mouthing something, wheezing, blood starting to trickle where the cord is breaking skin. His eyes are startlingly brown, like dried earth, like soil, and they turn black like holes dug into the ground. The sand of his complexion is turning blue.

He stills, face frozen on the screen. Widowmaker feels tickles on the top of her head, going to her shoulders and the tips of her fingers. Her breathing is shallow, lips curled upward, the bundle of muscle in her ribcage kicking pleasantly. She hears the mechanism attached to her head buzzing with each lovely tickle, every pleasing vibration. She breathes out.

The lights overhead turn on and the screen dims, the room filling with white again. Widowmaker blinks at the expanse of white, the walls, the floors, and the medical equipment strewn about in trays and trolleys. Her familiarity with each piece of equipment is _intimate_ at this point. Her head lolls again, eyes focusing on the tubes she can see hooked up to her arms and the thick, humming wires coiling and leading up to her head. She licks her lips, dry and cold. Remnants of pleasant buzzing skitter on her shoulders.

Induced pleasure at the sight of murder.

A door to her left hisses open and she doesn't look up. Footsteps approach her with slow intent.

They remove the tubes from her, massage the spots where the needles went in and cover them up. They handle the thing on her head with more care than they do with her. Someone accidentally knocks her temple with an elbow and she hisses, alive, sluggish but alive, her restraints rattling and muscles coiling. They shush her, wheedle condescending calm into her ears. A hand hovers by her mouth. Behind it, a face.

"Open wide," he coos, like a master would a pet. Widowmaker tilts her head back and away, blinking, groaning. The gaunt face behind the raised hand tuts at her and another hand grasps her jaw painfully. "Wouldn't want to get in trouble now, would you?" The German doctor waves the thing in his fingers, a purple pill. "Or would you rather go back to the needles? That would be a sign that you're _worsening_ rather than the opposite. I don't think you'd like that."

 _Needles and getting her scalp sliced and skull sawn open_ and she opens her mouth, begrudgingly, glaring through the doctor instead of at him. He hums in satisfaction as he pops it into her mouth, then orders it open again to check if the pill is gone afterwards.

"How do you feel?"

"Good," Widowmaker answers, slurring, voice something close to a purr. She blinks back spots and blurs in her vision. "Calm."

The doctor laughs. Laughs in that old world way that old world men do when they think a woman has said or done something pitiful. The urge to strangle him is a sensation long gone, erased by repeats of electric shocks and sedatives, firm whispers and chiding in her ear. Her hands remain slack. " _Coucher,_ " she slurs with urgency. "Rest, _s'il vous plaît._ "

Switching to her mother tongue never fails to make any of them smile. It's a sign of slipping, fading away, drugs ripping her apart bit by bit, control leaving her and going to them.

A hum like the doctor is considering it. Like Widowmaker just asked him, _tea or coffee_ and he's thinking about it. "I watched your combat footage for today," he dismisses with disinterest. Widowmaker swallows and slackens. "That girl–the Overwatch agent with the accelerator. She gets in your way all the time, yes?"

Widowmaker tilts her head. The doctor blinks at her. "She manages to engage you each time. Close quarters. Too fast? Or are you too careless?"

She doesn't like the smirk in his voice. She grunts, restraints clicking as she shifts. "She is fast. She clings. I cannot shake her."

"Then we must do something about that."

It takes her a moment to realize the doctor has gone completely quiet and is staring at her– _parts_ of her. Her prosthetic calves are subject to a squinting, thoughtful gaze and she makes a sound, a protesting hiss at the thought of a surgical table and lights and going under, under, _gone._

Soldiers are trained to improve. Weapons are merely upgraded. Outdated parts discarded to make way for better pieces.

Widowmaker is the weapon with the removable parts and programmed obedience. She is the gun that shoots where Talon tells her to. She is _an object._

The doctor hums, "mm." With a wave of his hand, several other medics move to remove Widowmaker from her restraints and he watches in mute interest as Widowmaker flops, still twitching here and there. Talon grunts in full armor catch her and haul her up, one under each arm.

" _No,_ " Widowmaker manages to slur out as she's hauled away. The doctor eyes her until the lab door sliding shut breaks their eye contact.

The trip to her quarters is one she'll never be familiar with. Not with the blurring and blending and swirling every time she's thrown into the lab and then carried out. The grunts keeping her up are chatting, she realizes. Words turning to nothing before she could even make sense of any of them. She hears something like a laugh. And then something hisses, making her groan. Under her arm, one grunt tenses.

"G _t he r u_ p, c o _e o n, we do 't h_ av eal l d _a y,_ " someone says, feminine, and Widowmaker hums in query but the voice answers back, " _n ot y u_."

She imagines herself to be floating as she's tipped and pulled like a ragdoll. Her suit is peeled back, back, _back,_ off her arms, her shoulders, her legs, and then she's shuffling idly in the cool of the room when it's gone. Someone laughs–she hears it–and she snarls, hoping she did it right. A black blob bounces on her side before disappearing.

Warmth brushes against her arms. She lifts them, fabric sliding through them and her neck. Something flaps against her thigh and she raises her legs one at a time to let shorts go through. And then she's being spun, led to where she knows her bed is and being assisted down.

Whoever is with her this time is speaking. Speaking in foamy incoherence, syllables and sounds going distant and then sharp again. " _Quoi?_ " she demands, and how she could garble up one syllable is beyond her. She reaches out and her wrist is snatched, not harshly, but tightly enough to resonate authority.

Everyone here has authority over her.

" _S l e ep ,_ " she hears, and she rolls her head and stares at nothing to show her affirmative.

Footsteps, the hiss of a door closing, and then silence. The lights go off. A dot of red blinks on one corner. The room is as cold as she remembers, the mattress as clammy as she knows it to be. She blinks at a dark ceiling and imagines there to be oranges and yellows blooming at the center. She reaches out, tries curling her fingers around the colors.

 _Amélie,_ the colors had yelled. Filled with urgency and fear and hope. Amélie. " _Non,_ " she thinks she says out loud.

A warmth flares alive in her chest, making her twitch. She tries again and again to wrap her fingers around the yellow-orange in her vision.

Amélie? Amélie is the thing underground, high on sedatives and medications and treatments, drugged out of her mind and barely functioning. She is the one drowning in the blur.

She is the one with the nightmares of a choking man mouthing her name, _her name_. She is the one reaching for the yellow-orange and weeping to disappear.

***

 _Stickle brick, tickle quick, laugh at the beautiful_  
_It’s just a nod to the canon_  
_Hustle over hot muscle shower, twitch off the beautiful_  
_It’s just a nod to the canon now_

_[One, two, three...](https://youtu.be/IlYB_wb5bys) _


	2. Interlude I

Müller says the Vatican City is one of the lucky few states to not have been so heavily damaged by the omnic crises. Widowmaker supposes, then, that even omnics have a sense of Christianity–spirituality?–respect for the metaphysical beliefs, at least. Which she finds funny, because the Holy See was apparently among the first to rise up and declare omnics and all forms of voluntary artificial body replacements  _sinful_ and  _blasphemous_. Playing god, they said, creating crude human beings and parts from crude, make-believe power. 

Funnier that they didn't exactly object when military and special forces came, as per UN directive, to protect the city when the omnics started toward Italy. Suddenly, heavily-modified human beings weren't that big of an issue. 

Humans and human make-believe powers and human make-believe ideals. 

_C'est la vie._

"Why are you smiling?" 

Widowmaker frowns and turns her head to face the German doctor standing casually next to her, hands in his pockets and lab coat open, as if out to go on a leisurely stroll. Müller returns her frown, albeit condescendingly, and runs a hand through his thinning hair. 

"I was... thinking," Widowmaker pauses to breathe, scramble for thoughts and words going in and out of her brain. She blinks through the haze, clutches her head. Her hair falls in thick curtains on either side. "Holy See... modified soldiers... omnics..." 

"Mm." There's a smile in Müller's voice now. "Now there's a perfect philosophical discussion, no? Delicate beliefs, precarious integrity..." he makes a pensieve sound, "human machinations." 

Widowmaker tries to snort but it comes out a tired sigh. "It is instinct... self-preservation..." she says, remembering with surprising clarity through the medication all the times fighting men and women have cowered, hidden behind comrades at the realization of a sniper's presence in the field. Remembering also, how hiding behind human barricades never helped. A pleasant tingle runs down her spine, an automatic response. "Beliefs and feelings mean nothing when... wh–when..." 

"Faced with death, yes." Müller ponders this. "Although, only the ones that don't count, I think." When Widowmaker squints at him in question, he sighs heavily as if he's talking to a child. Or a buffoon. "Beliefs and feelings that are grounded and  _true_ may shoot down any desire of self-preservation... the opposite paves the way to surrender." 

He smiles at Widowmaker, small and meaningful, with a glint in his eyes that makes something in Widowmaker's chest stir. It's fleeting, the pain she associates with lapses in the effect of her medications. She's been promised they'll come up with a more potent compound to get rid of the lapses and the bursts of pain in her chest. If not a better compound, then a better way of administering the drugs. She frowns at the idea of needles again. 

She shifts, licks her lips and tries to sound like something other than a drugged-up fool. "Bianchi..." 

"What's that?" 

"Bianchi," she tries again, swallowing heavily afterwards. Her mouth is dry. She could kill for some water, and quite literally, too. "Dr Bianchi... is..." 

"Coming," Müller says, stiff all of a sudden. His dislike for Dr Allison Bianchi has long been noted by both Widowmaker and the entire Talon Research, Sciences, and Development department. Dr Bianchi is brilliant, young, at the forefront of all present sciences concerned with human weaponization, and spearheaded the Widowmaker project with Müller on the sidelines. 

Most of all, she is a woman, and that's enough to earn Müller's ire. 

Müller is a dreadful human being–a man of science and sensibility, true, but he has no qualms with inhumane treatments for the furtherment of Talon's objectives. He dabbles in prosthetics, but is a genius in neurobiology. He likes opening things to see how they worked and uses the knowledge to his advantage. 

Bianchi is diabolic, plain and simple. She is a woman of science and of herself, through and through, with no human sensitivities to speak of. She breaks things to put them back together differently. She breaks things to make them hers. 

Widowmaker is not entirely sure who she prefers handling her. 

When the doors hiss open, Müller barks at the Talon agents idling on either side of Widowmaker to heave her up and they do, with Widowmaker grunting protests. Bianchi, flanked by bodyguards of her own employ, scrunches her face and shakes her head. Widowmaker automatically resists. 

"Do not handle her like  _brutes,_ idiots, even I can see she's delicate. And drugged." Bianchi gives Müller a nasty side eye and Müller's face twitches before it blanks. "Excessively, I have reason to believe." 

"It's the same compound as before, just so you know." 

"Downers? I'm surprised she can still be somewhat coherent." 

"Yes. It's... the dosages. She seems to be developing thresholds with time–" 

" _Fucking downers_ ," Bianchi spits, face harsh. She starts to pull her thick, brown hair into a tight bun, seeing it fit to ignore Widowmaker's reaction to her presence. "Of course she'll eventually develop resistances, did you not take your Biology courses? I've read your _reports_ ," she says this like she just smelled something disgusting. "I told you dope wasn't a good solution. It causes damages to the organic body. It ruins the organic brain. It makes a junkie rather than a weapon. As a matter of fact, it _ruins_ the whole purpose of a human weapon." 

"We've told you, we decided the human factor to be important, and therefore retained," Müller maintains in a controlled tone. Bianchi is loud, unapologetic, and rude, but also a valuable asset. Talon needs her as much as she needs subjects and funding for her research. Müller breathes out, and Widowmaker feels herself giggle. His brow twitches. "We don't doubt the capacity of your artificial intelligence algorithms, but organic intelligence and organic responses will still always be superior." 

"Oh, really now, humans are smarter than machines." 

"With the right conditioning." Müller throws Widowmaker a lingering look, a mixture of contempt and pride in his eyes. Widowmaker frowns at him. Their eye contact is broken only by Bianchi stepping between them. Bianchi looks Widowmaker up and down, stares down the grunts holding her up, and yells to her own bodyguards to move Widowmaker to a table. 

"You're not fucking zoo handlers. That's my work you're carrying," she warns, and Widowmaker is almost thankful for the bodyguards' gentleness. She sways still, though, eyelids droopy and mouth half open. 

"Talon's work, I think you mean, Dr Bianchi." 

"With more than half my input, I could call it my work if I wanted, Müller." 

Widowmaker is laid down, restrained, wrists and ankles and waist, and Bianchi snaps at Müller to  _hurry up with those goddamn controls_ and Widowmaker thinks she laughs. Or at least makes some kind of sound close to it. 

Sensations are blurring together. She feels the lights more than sees them, and they don't feel very comfortable. Her skin feels lit up by tiny flames. She closes her eyes, watches the brightness burn past her eyelids. A hand lightly slapping her cheek makes them pop open again. 

"Eyes open," Bianchi says. She always speaks curtly, like everything about everything is irritating. Regardless, her English is flawless, the Italian accent completely absent. Müller has once mentioned that she also speaks perfect Japanese, Russian, Korean, and German, owing to staying long periods of time in the countries, researching, studying, and ultimately, pilfering tech, altering them to fit her intended science. Widowmaker knows for a fact that her calves are Korean tech. Overwatch operative D.Va uses a meka with the same aesthetics, the same materials for construction. 

 _Human weaponization. The future of the world. Weapons are in high demand this day and age, and what better resource to use than the one that just keeps growing?_  said Bianchi in her opening spiel when Widowmaker was first introduced to Talon's upper echelon. _What better way to get rid of all in our way and of Overwatch?_

Widowmaker had then been tasked to eliminate a former Talon head scientist suspected of cooperation with law enforcement authorities. He was in Bangkok, hiding in a penthouse with armed guards and all possible manner of surveillance. 

Upper echelon had reportedly drank over the footage of her killing everyone in the penthouse. 

Widowmaker hears a clap and the lights overhead brighten. She squints, baring her teeth, moving against her restraints. "Temperature," Bianchi snaps, and the room's temperature lowers to match Widowmaker's core cold. She feels herself relax. 

Bianchi runs a light across Widowmaker's eyes and Widowmaker tries pulling her head away, irritated by the light. Her skin crawls. Bianchi grasps her chin and turns her head forward. "Can you tell me where we are?" 

"Va...  _vuh..._ Vatican City..." 

"And who am I?" 

"Dr Allison Bi _uh..._ Bian... chi." 

"And who's the idiot who had you drugged up like this?" 

Widowmaker's conditioning tells her to shut up, but she tries to laugh. Bianchi only scoffs. 

"Müller, that's who," she says sharply. Widowmaker stares at the blur, at the open air until she isn't because she's closing her eyes. She feels needles going into her arms. The table whizzes, spins to a flat 180 degree angle. A respirator is strapped to her face. She breathes in grunts, chest heaving, eyes rolling to the back of her head. 

" _G et  m   sa m les o f..._ " 

"...  _G  in g   u n  de  r..._ " 

" _W   id o  wm a k  r, r   sp  nd..._ " 

Widowmaker gives a pathetic whine, jaw slack behind the respirator. She feels gloved hands on her arms. 

" _She is under. Let's begin._ " 

 

Widowmaker peeks through the scope of Widow's Kiss, artificial vertebrae and kneecaps locked to assist with posture and stability. The moving targets are sliding side to side with the closest one measured at 200 feet away. There are five of them in total, moving unsynchronized, each 50 feet farther than the one before it. 

She shoots down one and it topples back before flipping upright again. The bullet mark is somewhere on its head. She adjusts, tries to get a better handle on the weapon, but the wires attached to her chest and head are making it hard to move. Her breathing isn't as stable as she likes, and even now, hours later, there are kicks in her chest that take her by surprise. 

It's always like this after Bianchi's maintenance treatments. Updating Widowmaker's pacemaker, replacing components, removing them, updating them. Every change is something to get used to. Every change is a reminder of what she is, and how good she needs to be at what she does. 

Speakers mounted on the walls drone numbers in measurement of her accuracy. She feels her audience's scrutinizing stares behind an observation panel, crawling on her skin. 

She is calmer now, blanker, black rather than blobs of gray. The blue pills do that. Pills they make her take before going out on an assignment, drugs that mute hormones and certain parts of her brain linked directly to emotions and emotional responses. Drugs that make her move from an enemy's line of fire not because of the fear of harm, but from the fact of it–because the latter would mean inconvenience or failure of a mission. 

It's the purple pills that hinder completely everything, from movement to proper brain activity. It's those that are for _Amélie_ , they've told her. It's to keep Amélie restrained, and obedient, and useless. The broken, dragging limb on a spider's body. 

She shoots again, face stiff, the absence of blood and burnt skin and viscera doing nothing for the utter blankness of everything. The speakers drone, " _accuracy at seventy-nine point forty-one,_ " and she tries adjusting again, fixes her poise and handle. 

" _Widowmaker,_ " Bianchi's voice crackles through the speakers. Widowmaker automatically frowns. " _That's enough. This session is through._ " 

"I am not finished."

" _Widowmaker, I said this session is through. Your escorts are coming in, put down the weapon–_ " 

Widowmaker lines up the shot, breathes in. When she breathes out, the sound of a gunshot rings with it, and all five targets coincidentally alligned fall. When they spring back up and move again, the marks are perfectly centered on the heads. 

" _Accuracy at ninety-nine point sixty-five._ " 

Widowmaker carefully sets down the weapon and raises her arms, links her hands behind her head and waits. Bianchi's half-hearted scoff sounds through the speakers.

 

"I don't need to say out loud that full artificial integration is unnecessary, do I?" 

"For now, Müller," Bianchi growls, watching as Widowmaker is reoutfitted in her combat suit and gauntlets. She turns the visor in her hands over and over, contemplative. Widowmaker keeps Bianchi in her peripheral. "She is imperfect no matter what the readings say. She always will be with a human mind." 

"Her body is perfectly maintained. What little damage the medications do to her brain are not irreversible. We will find ways," Müller says, and waves dismissively when an attending Talon agent approaches to report they're done. "Her human factor is valuable. Little incentives push her to improve. Little threats spring up spontaneous reactions. Robots can be impractical in the battlefield." 

"A human being will never be ours. Drugs aren't for the long run. You're looking to create a better compound now, yourself. Don't lie." 

"I am looking, and I will find one." 

"Upper echelon will never see you above me, Müller," Bianchi says. Müller's face darkens, and Widowmaker is sure she sees his fists shake on either side of him. 

_Fame and glory and superiority..._

Widowmaker approaches them now, chin held up, taller than them both. She eyes Bianchi with a challenge. Bianchi eyes her back with a threat. She lets a Talon agent take the visor from her to attach to Widowmaker's head. " _Its_ human factor is a liability," she looks to Müller, "and I will be here when that finally shows." 

When Bianchi leaves, Müller spends the better half of five minutes just staring at a wall, frowning, a crease between his eyebrows. He mutters in his native language, quick and angry under his breath, and motions for the idling grunts in the proximity to get moving. 

"You're needed in Brisbane," Müller says without looking directly at Widowmaker. "You will report any irregularities you feel in your cardiac regions, immediately if possible. If not severe, they can wait until after the assignment."  

Without waiting for a response, he sends Widowmaker away. Widowmaker goes quietly. 

 

* * *

 

Knives, Widowmaker frowns upon. 

You only needed to push a man to send him flying out a window, needed the right tools and angle to choke someone or break their neck. And guns, guns are neat and efficient. One shot, one kill. 

But  _knives._ Knives are too intimate. Blood everywhere and on one's own hands and clothes. Knives make a mess and just...  _splatter._ Widowmaker would rather go bare handed, but certain situations require improvisation. 

Widowmaker stabs again with a frown, looking the blonde woman in the eyes. She's clamped the woman's mouth shut but she still screams with her eyes, wide and glassy, her body twitching violently. Widowmaker can feel the wetness drenching her hands, dripping to her thigh and the floor. Filthy. 

She twists the knife, though. Watches those eyes twitch and fill with tears because messy or no, this is her biology, and her biology finds pleasure in violence and murder. She pulls the knife away, digs it in again, in a different spot of the stomach this time. The flesh is soft outside and taut inside, pulling the blade further in with each struggling breath. 

They must not cook in this house very often. That, or they make it a point to keep their kitchen knives sharp for whatever reason. 

Corpses of bodyguards are scattered in the estate. Widowmaker's gun is somewhere in the living room where one guard had kicked it from her hands, probably under the grand piano. 

She's still mentally berating herself for that misstep. 

When she pulls away, the woman's body drops to the floor with a wet thud that makes her smile despite the mess. And then she cracks her neck and turns to the rest of the family cowering in the corner. A man has his children under his arms, the three of them curled pathetically against the wall. 

Not a sniping operation, the briefing had said. Strictly, enter the home and kill everyone in the area. Use sneak and assault tactics. Security cameras will be offline by the time she's given the signal to begin. 

"Why?" The Australian secretary of defense looks much older in person, and much more unimpressive. In pictures, he's all smiles and charm. Widowmaker is seeing neither of those here. "Wh–why are you doing this? Why my wife? If you wanted me, you could've just taken me, killed  _just_ me, why–" 

Widowmaker bends down to snatch a pistol off the corpse of a nearby guard. The children whine and whimper and she smiles at them humorlessly, humming. 

"Please–please, please, not the children, just me, just kill me, not my children, please..." 

She checks the pistol for bullets–"two, how inconvenient,"–and then cocks it, knife still in her other hand. 

The secretary of defense is crying now, fat drops of tears and mucus trailing down his face. "Why are you doing this? Please, why are you doing this, why, just tell me what you want..." 

Widowmaker would answer his question, she actually quite likes to, just to get him to shut up. 

It's just that, she doesn't really know  _why_ either. 

With the hand holding the knife, she beckons the secretary of defense forward. The man stiffens, stares at her with wide eyes, and clutches his children closer to him. Widowmaker notices the groin of his pyjamas darken with wetness. Now he's suddenly very, very afraid for himself. Now he suddenly wants to live. 

Widowmaker would have laughed if this entire affair wasn't so problematic already. She thinks of Müller, Müller and his philosophy, Müller and his musings on feelings and beliefs. 

Do they apply to parental feelings, she wonders. 

"Come now," she coos, and the man recoils because this is the first time she's spoken tonight. He glances at his children, tiny, shaking things in his arms, and swallows, his hold on them tightening. He does not stand up. 

"Secretary," Widowmaker tries again, voice harsher, face pinching with impatience. "If you will just come forward." 

"I–I... m–my children, mustn't leave my ch–children..." 

She stalks forward, grabs the secretary of defense by his shirt and throws him to the center of the kitchen with some difficulty. One of his children, his son, cries out and clings to his leg, dragged forward, too. They both scramble, the daughter left in the corner and sobbing. 

"I–it's okay, son, it's okay, we–we'll be fine, close your eyes, okay, close y–your eyes..." 

They embrace. Widowmaker shoots. She makes the best of one bullet. 

Turning to the girl screaming in the corner, Widowmaker makes two out of two bullets. 

 

Widowmaker is quiet as she waits on the estate yard for extraction. The pleasure, the borderline arousal have long since passed. Those never do last.

The sky is dark, cold, and the wind is making the tail of her ponytail whip back and forth. She keeps watch on the horizon, looks out for any signs of a black aircraft and red insignias, and she doesn't know if she's early, or they're late. 

They don't let her keep a watch. Her comm is all she needs to know things, they said, and she can't keep a hold on time with constantly changing time zones and the medications regularly pumped into her bloodstream. So she waits, stupidly, pathetically, standing on the yard with Widow's Kiss dangling off one hand. 

She's that way when Tracer find her. Tracer's presence is very hard to mistake, what with the thing on her chest and its light and low humming. Widowmaker turns around to face her, and finds Tracer aiming pistols at her, face pale, eyes wide and lips parted. She doesn't move. For a moment, Widowmaker is confused, but then she remembers her appearance and realizes, she isn't in her most presentable at the moment. 

Dried blood everywhere, on her suit, her prosthetics, the exposed skin of her arms and chest. She thinks she even got some on her cheek and she tries to wipe at it with her palm, but it might've already dried. 

She looks at Tracer again, and emotions flip through Tracer's face until she settles on terror. 

And then, there, _pain?_ Disbelief? 

Widowmaker feels... _furious_ , now. An irrational rage, something not belonging to her spreading through the hollows in her body, heat blooming in her chest, her heart starting to do things, again. Pain in her head, noises and a high-pitched whining in her ears, bouncing around in her skull. 

She thinks it might be the lapse in the drugs' effect. It might be a modification in Bianchi's pacemaker. It might be it might be... 

Her head is pounding. She and Tracer stare at one another. 

Don't look at me like that, she wants to say. Don't look at me. Don't look at me. 

 _Don't call me_ that. 

"Don't go in there," she hears herself say instead. She runs, launching her grapple to help her vault over the estate gates. A pulse round grazes her arm and the burn stings enough to make her hiss, a shuriken misses her cheek by mere centimeters. 

"Requesting extraction on a different location. Overwatch agents have swarmed the scene," she drones into the comms. "Respond. Requesting extraction on a different location." 

" _Roger. We're tracking you. Coming to you in two minutes._ " 

Scaling a building with her grapple, she crawls and hides under the shadows of a water tank. She lets the pain in her chest engulf her. 

 

*** 

 

 _Never leave it too late, always enjoy the taste_  
_Of the great grey world of hearts_

 _As all dogs everywhere bark_  
_It's worth knowing_  
_Like all good fruit the balance of life is_

_[In the ripe and ruin](https://youtu.be/pkOn8Lrywls) _


	3. Tesselate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> headcanons abound and ~~likely to be jossed~~ some points of interest: 
> 
> 1\. the concept of amélie (and everything about this pre-talon life) is rejected by widowmaker, the way repressing memories work  
> 2\. amélie is closely associated with the emotion of anger for widowmaker because, u know, if u were kidnapped and conditioned to be the killer she's become u'd be pretty pissed at everything too  
> 3\. talon keeps her heavily drugged at base and as a result she likes it better outside going on missions because at least she has some semblance of freedom  
> 4\. widowmaker dissociates from most everything that goes on at talon bases
> 
> *backflips away*

When Widowmaker is at base, all she does is rest. 

Her meals are scheduled. A mix of dishes given in small servings coming through the chute of her door. Frequently, if she's understood enough from Müller. Her metabolism is slow, and her body is sluggish to recover expended energy owed to the changes in her biology. A weapon with large batteries and slow recharge times. Brought out only when needed. 

When she is not eating, she sleeps, for how long, she's not sure herself. Time is a useless notion in a quarters with no windows and a brain too clouded to count seconds, minutes, hours. She never does dream, and a part of her is relieved because of the things she may see in them. 

She hears whispers, sometimes, though. Voices that are more in her head than in her ears. Conversations that are clipped, cut short, incomplete, disjointed bits of words that fall through her fingers like sand. Music, sometimes, she can hear. And then screams. 

Amidst the shrieks of so many people, sometimes she can make out her own voice. Sometimes she wants to tear off her own ears, refusing to believe she can scream as loud as all of them. 

Idle is never a good thing to be. She likes it more when she's outside, when she can think, when she can move, when she can kill and  _feel._ She likes it, being the Widowmaker she's supposed to be. 

She does not like being here. 

Her head pounds. She sits up on her bed, clutching the top of her skull. 

She stands, breathes to grasp some semblance of balance with her hands spread on either side of her. The medication is still thick in her veins, pumping and pumping, making her vision swim and senses warp when she moves her head. She powers through and drags herself across the room. 

Her hands find the surface of the door. One curls into a fist, pulls back, and slams. The steel shakes and rings. She punches again, and again, until it hisses and slides open, a grunt in full gear on the other side. 

"What?" 

" _Müller,_ " she groans, the best she could force her mouth to say. "Get... Müller..." 

"Müller is busy. Get back." 

The door starts to slide back and she grasps it with one trembling hand. She pushes it back in place with some difficulty, strength hampered by drugs. The grunt has raised his rifle. 

"I said," he cocks the gun meaningfully, "get back." 

"Müller," she repeats, a growl now. The grunt doesn't move. Under her palm, she feels the door try to slide and she frowns, raising her head. 

Her head is hot, burning with pain and an anger she doesn't know from where it came. _Müller,_ she demands,  _Müller,_ she rumbles, rough like charred steel, something hot burning through the film of downers in her system. The grunt says  _get back_ again, rifle lifted to her face, and in a startling show of control, she surges forward, snatches his rifle and whips it across his helmeted head. He stumbles and she follows, hitting his head with the gun hard enough to break the gun in two. 

When he slumps, he doesn't move again. Widowmaker can see a crack on the top of his helmet. Dots of blood stain the inside of his visor. 

Widowmaker tosses the rifle to the side and turns, head up toward the ceiling, eyes searching and sweeping. She finds what she's looking for–a camera, blinking red, aimed at her face–and scowls. Mouths,  _Müller._

Grunts are the first to arrive, wielding batons and stomps echoing like explosive heartbeats on the corridor. Widowmaker deals with them with instinct, in brushes of color in her vision and her body doing everything of its own volition–a jab, a kick, a sweep of her leg and a baton thrust clean through someone's visor–jolts of pleasure rock her spine, dig into the top of her head and coax her further. The drive for killing automatic, like flicking a switch: a shark smelling blood and digging in. 

Self-preservation is only secondary. A grunt knees her on the stomach and her body takes it: her body wraps her arms around the offending leg and  _snaps_ it. 

Someone shouts. It could be a grunt, it could be herself, it could be Müller or someone else,  _something else._

They cut the lights in the corridor. Widowmaker is tackled to the ground, subdued, skull pressed hard on the linoleum and arms behind her back. She surrenders easily, her body returning to her. She blinks with clarity, looking up when the lights turn on again. Müller is frowning down at her. 

"Didn't I say never to open her door? How many times should I tell you idiots this?" Müller addresses the grunts without looking at them. They murmur explanations–new guy, stupid guy,  _dead guy_ –and clicks his tongue. He looks around the corridor now. "Now look at this mess." 

Widowmaker can't look around, pinned to the floor as she is, but she can feel a cold moistness on her cheek. She flares her nostrils. 

"Let her up." 

The knee on her back disappears. She's hauled up and held in place, hands on her arms and cool metal on the back of her neck. A gun. Either that or–

"Let her have it." 

She shrieks, high and uncontrolled. Electricity stabs into the indent of her shoulder and neck. Her spine sets, stiffens, bones locking and muscles freezing. The shock goes on, and on,  _and on,_ and Müller only says _stop_ when saliva has started to spill from Widowmaker's open mouth and tears spring to her eyes. The anger sizzles out, doused flames, like it was never there in the first place. 

Gone gone  _gone._

"So restless when rested," he says with a frown in his voice. Widowmaker twitches with aftershocks, muscles still clamped hard around her bones. She smells singed hair, burnt skin, the smoke of scorched steel. Her eyes open to vertigo and a cloudy world. 

"Provoked," she feels the word drop off her mouth like a lump of wet muscle, lousy, useless. She wiggles her head. " _Müller_ –"

A hand on her jaw, turning her head to face one direction. She feels warm air on her face. Müller's breaths, slow and steady. "We will discuss this later," he intones lowly. Widowmaker blinks unseeingly. "Right now, you are needed in a briefing." To the woman standing next to her, tall, pale, gaunt, face pinched at the scene on the hallway, "make her presentable. And have someone clean this mess." 

The woman moves after a moment of hesitation. Widowmaker is dragged back to her quarters and stripped. 

The humiliation from being undressed is just another emotion long removed from her. Distant, the way she used to fight them, shout, take the beatings and the shocks with a wet face when she got too troublesome. Unreal, almost. Dreamlike. Made up by some twisted part of her brain. Not Widowmaker. 

Because Widowmaker knows the routine and abides by it. The muzzle of a weapon presses against the back of her head while one grunt holds her up, the female handler dutifully removing her clothing. She looks at her hands, her bare prosthetics, sees the drops of red on steel and skin. 

Her temples give a warning throb. As the showerhead sprays cold water onto her face and chest, as the handler bathes her and will later dress her and guide her to the conference room like a lost pet–as she imagines another assignment and the soothing illusion of freedom, she closes her eyes. 

 

She is dark-skinned, and dressed in purple, and smirking in that way that only arrogant ruffians can do. They call her Sombra, some kind of prodigy with technology that can hack her way through anything, eyes like polished cuts of mica that rake Widowmaker's suited form unapologetically. "You are the  _araña_ _?_ " she asks with a chuckle, and a louder chuckle when she goes for a handshake and is very pointedly walked past of. 

She follows Widowmaker with her eyes, eyes that gleam and squint like they're undressing everyone they see, clothes and skin and muscle and bone, until every ugly thing inside comes spilling to the floor. 

Widowmaker decides she does not like Sombra. 

"Would do you well to be nice to me,  _amiga,_ I'm nice to those who are nice to me," Sombra whispers to her as they stand shoulder to shoulder. Widowmaker spins, scowls at her, and only allows her posture to relax when Reaper sweeps into the room with the rumble of a growl and curling smoke. He solidifies in bits, his head and then arms and his legs always last, smoke swishing like the tail of a reptile. Widowmaker's fingers twitch at the feel of his smoke whipping briefly at her wrist, like torn fabric, light and fleeting. 

"Acquainted already, I see," he observes. Next to Widowmaker, Sombra snorts. Widowmaker frowns her derision. 

"We're best friends already, can't you tell?" Sombra nudges Widowmaker with an elbow and a wink as if to prove her point. When Widowmaker ignores her, "aw, come on,  _Widow,_ you're embarrassing me here." 

In her peripheral, Widowmaker sees Reaper's head turned toward her. If he had eyes, she would look into them, but as it is Reaper only has the eyeholes of his mask. She's fine with that. She turns her head, stares, and waits in quiet obedience. 

" _Sombra,_ " Reaper hisses. Sombra sighs, shoulders going slack and eyes rolling once before they settle forward. 

Widowmaker grinds her teeth in her mouth. "I'm not here just to meet  _her,_ am I?" 

"Hurting my feelings now, really?" 

"Enough. And no, you're not." Reaper moves to sit, large gauntlets tapping on the tabletop. Widowmaker and Sombra sit across from him, the three of them the only living bodies in conference room 3-1. 

"Briefing," Reaper says. He takes out a remote, pushes a button and the room plunges into darkness before the projector on the wall lights up with the Talon insignia. Widowmaker sits, legs crossed, leaned back but eyes sharp with attention. Sombra is observing her own nailbeds. 

"Reykjavík," Reaper starts. "The Icelandic government has custody of one of Talon's former head engineers. Taken in through cooperation, according to intel, after being put under consideration for termination." A file pulls up on a miniature window and Widowmaker commits the image of a woman with pallid skin, blonde hair, and a strong nose to memory. She stares into the gray eyes she can see on the projection. "This is Berglind Kormákur. She's been charged with the reverse engineering of various armaments stolen by Talon, for Talon, since her recruitment. Her most recent assignment concerned hardlight tech courtesy of Vishkar. 

"Earlier this year, she was placed under close surveillance due to suspicion of double agency." More photos pull up. One shows Kormákur getting into a vehicle marked with the _Lögregla_ insignia. The Icelandic National Police. Compromising. "The Icelandic police consequently extracted her from Talon custody and has now placed her under their protection." 

"You guys have shitty security, if I'm allowed to say anything about this." 

"Which you _aren't_ ," Reaper grumbles. Sombra rolls her eyes but says nothing more. The files on Kormákur disappear and are replaced with photos of a facility. "We have pinpointed her safehouse to be  _here._ A warehouse in Grafarvogur. This was a center for electronics storage and distribution before the war. The Icelandic government has started to convert it into a research facility with the aid of Kormákur, it seems." 

"So Kormákur has to," Sombra clicks her tongue and swipes a finger across her neck, "go, is that it?" 

"And so does the facility," Reaper confirms. "If she's been working with them as long as we think she has, then that needs to die with her." 

Widowmaker leans forward, rests her elbows on the table and tents her fingers together. "And we will do this, how?" 

"Explosives," Reaper answers with some disdain, an aversion to explosives same with Widowmaker's to knives. Unnecessary mess, unnecessary efforts. "I'm charged with them. I'll plant them in the facility's underground." He gestures to Widowmaker. "You'll go deeper and search for Kormákur. If she isn't in there, then we'll have to know." 

Reaper turns his attention to Sombra, who has looked up from her nails and is whipping her seat side to side. "You'll be our eyes," he says with a low grumble. "Hack into the facility's security and surveillance systems. Tell us the way. Make sure the police aren't alarmed. You better be as useful as I'm told you are." 

"Oh, I am." Sombra leans back and laughs. "And I plan to make a good first impression. You'll see." 

Reaper grumbles. The lights come on again. "I have to start demanding to be consulted before any kind of recruitment. We leave in five hours."

Sombra stands up slowly, eyes on Widowmaker, seems to be waiting for her to do the same. She frowns when Widowmaker doesn't, but whatever smartass quip in her mouth dies when grunts walk into the room and stand meaningfully on either side of the door. Widowmaker avoids Sombra's eyes as she gets up. 

"Didn't know you were arachnid royalty, your highness." 

Widowmaker whirls, steps forward, glares Sombra down. Looming is so easy with the height difference. Sombra's breath catches but she's quick to recover, hands flying up to signify apology. 

"Be cool,  _puta._ " 

Widowmaker reaches out, grasps one of Sombra's wrists  _tight_ and Sombra flinches, shoulders lifting in a shudder, teeth baring in surprise. "I am nothing if not  _cool._ " She tightens her grip, lets the cold of her hand sink into Sombra's wrist. Sombra stares at Widowmaker's hand and then her face, recovering enough to scowl. Widowmaker flares her nostrils. " _Amie._ " 

"Widowmaker," Reaper warns. Widowmaker releases Sombra's wrist. Sombra clutches it, arm curled toward herself protectively. "Sombra, leave. _You_ ," Reaper points to Widowmaker, "come here." 

Widowmaker leaves Sombra glaring. Sombra, frowning, hand still around her wrist and shoulders still raised in alarm, walks quickly out the door and slams it shut behind her. 

Reaper hums at the show of spite and then lifts his head, the eyeholes of his mask directed to Widowmaker as she stands in front of him. Widowmaker keeps her eyes forward. 

"Wouldn't want to make another mess before your first one is even cleaned up, would you?" Reaper drawls, the implications of knowledge and a warning stark in his voice. "Maybe you're not as improved as Müller thinks you are." 

Widowmaker feels herself freeze, breath stopping in her lungs. She swallows, eyes panning down to meet Reaper's gaze. Reaper understands enough to chuckle lowly, rough, gravelly, dark. "I was provoked," she supplies quietly. "He held a gun to my face." 

Reaper hums. "And he opened your door, didn't he?" He stands. Widowmaker steps back to make room. "Müller has told me you were medicated during this time. Interesting. Not very good for him, don't you think?" He looms over Widowmaker. Widowmaker occupies herself with his odor–like death, like old fabric, like smoke and ashes. "Nor for you. Not very good for you."

He walks past Widowmaker without another word. Widowmaker stands there and doesn't move until the grunts at the door bark at her to. She walks with fists balled at her side. 

 

* * *

 

Widowmaker sits next to Sombra in the aircraft. Across from them are medics staring blankly at the walls opposite to them. Widowmaker's legs are crossed, foot swaying, Widow's Kiss rested on her knee. 

Sombra, fiddling with a hologram she has conjured, hums. "An exciting bunch, aren't we?" 

Widowmaker lets the attempt at conversation hang and dissipate. She blinks at the ground. The aircraft rumbles around them. Sombra sighs. 

"Are you always such a bitch, Widowmaker?" she asks airily like she's simply inquired about the weather. "I can't decide if you're a bitch just to complete the get up or you're a bitch through and through." 

"Through and through, perhaps." 

" _Ah,_ so she can hold a conversation." 

Widowmaker ignores the jab. She hefts Widow's Kiss aloft, studies it like she doesn't already know its edges by heart. 

"And there the conversation went." 

Widowmaker hums. Sombra waves away her hologram, fingers stretching and legs splayed straight. "I'm starting to second guess my joining Talon. It's deader than the dead in here." 

"Why  _did_ you join Talon, Sombra." Widowmaker grits out in annoyance, worded like a question but intoned the opposite. Sombra laughs next to her. 

"Why did _you_ , Widow?" 

Widowmaker looks Sombra in the eyes and doesn't answer the question. Sombra says nothing more for the rest of the trip, tucked behind another of her hologram screens. 

Widowmaker knows when they're about to land. The medics stand up with purpose and gesture for her to the same. One fits her with her visor, priming it through a tablet, and then attaches her bracers, her forearms tensing under the steel. A venom mine is armed on one. A medic inspects it. 

Sombra hovers in her peripheral, watching the process, discovering the routine. Widowmaker meets her eyes halfway through opening her mouth to take a proferred pill. Sombra's eyes undress her, clothes and skin and muscle and bone. 

 

" _There are guards patrolling the underground floor, just three that I can count. One making rounds in the parking area and two in the facility proper._ " 

" _Doors._ " 

" _Wouldn't hurt you to say_ please _._ " 

" _I said,_ doors." 

" _Ugh, the manners on this one._ " 

Widowmaker watches the shadow on the floor move and disappear from view. The accompanying footsteps grow faint, and only then does she push off the partition to slink to the connecting hallway. 

" _How we doing on your end, spidey?_ " 

"That is not my name," Widowmaker whispers with a hiss, crouched behind cover and throwing a glare at the nearest security camera. Sombra's laugh is loud on the comms. 

" _Oh, I_ know." 

And something about the way Sombra says that makes Widowmaker growl under her breath. She blinks, rubs her temple. "Can we please stick to the mission?" 

" _Guard coming to your direction. You get past him and the elevators are just straight down this hall._ " 

Sure enough, Widowmaker sees the approaching shadow seconds later. She lifts her gun, crouches, coiled ready to spring, and as soon as the first foot emerges from the corner she springs up, whips the butt of her weapon upward and hits the guard on the jaw. He collapses easily with his weapon flying out of his hands. Widowmaker follows the assault by cradling his head, lifting, and snapping his neck. 

A tickle at the top of her head. Her sigh is breathy and audible enough to make Reaper laugh into the comms. 

" _Fantastic._ "

She runs quietly down the hall and stops in front of the elevator door, looking up expectantly at a nearby security camera. 

The door slides open and she slips in. " _Going up,_ " Sombra chirps into the comms. 

" _Report as soon as you see Kormákur,_ " comes Reaper's voice on the line. " _Whether you kill her now or not is irrelevant. This facility is going down with her._ " 

"I'll kill her," Widowmaker answers breezily as the elevator gives a beep and starts to go up. Reaper's laugh is deep and long. 

" _I'm sure you will. Explosives are in place. On stand by for status update on the target._ " 

"Copy." 

" _Be quick, Widowmaker._ " 

The elevator slows to a stop and the door hisses open to a dark hallway sheened faintly with the lights from the elevator interior. Widowmaker whispers, "lights," into her comm and the lights on the floor flicker on one by one. 

"Sombra, do you see anyone?" 

" _This is really eerie, but no. I can't see anyone here_." Widowmaker looks up, watches the mounted security cameras on the ceiling as she walks. " _Wait, I think I see someone in the–whoa, what the_ fuck?" 

" _Sombra?_ " Reaper grunts in alarm. Widowmaker makes a sound as her comm starts to crackle and the lights overhead start to flicker. She raises her weapon and poises defensive. 

"What's happening?" 

" _There's someone on the system with me–agh, come on, shit, who the fuck is Athena–_ " 

The comms crackle dead along with the lights. Widowmaker's visor slides to her face and primes itself to the appropriate setting, whirs as the corridor becomes visible in green light. Night vision. "Reaper?" she whispers into the comms, jaw tense. "Sombra? Do you copy?" 

Silence. She takes her steps one at a time, slow, breath held in her chest, movements precise, finger on the trigger. She strains her ears for sounds, squints her eyes to any signs of movement–there are a few later. The pad of rushing footsteps, the soft glow of an accelerator, fists and knees zipping close in a blur of light. 

Tracer tackles her and sends her stumbling back, head hitting the wall. Widowmaker hisses and shuffles upright. 

"What's the matter, love? Not at all what you were expecting?" Pulse pistols flip to Tracer's hands and she aims them, the same time Widowmaker aims, recovered. "Got you good didn't we?" 

Widowmaker glowers. Even in green visuals, Tracer is still the same bundle of light, bright from her outfit to her smug grin. 

"Put the gun down," Tracer says. "We both know I'm faster than you and I could shoot you before you could–" 

Widowmaker springs, legs long and quick like a spider, knocking Tracer down with her shoulder. Tracer splutters, curses, yelps something along the lines of  _me and my big mouth_ and catches herself with a blink before she could fall flat on the floor. Widowmaker follows her with gunfire and laughter as she zips down the hallways. 

She releases the trigger and waits. No motions. No sounds. She switches modes on her visor and the green is washed away with a slate of gray and blue. Thermal vision. 

Her comm is all silence when she tries it again. She curses, sweeps her eyes across the gray blindly until a surge of yellow in the distance pops up. Warmth, body heat, life. 

A smile as she fingers the trigger. 

"I see you, _chérie,_ " she calls out, shudder-sweet and lilting. The blob of heat that is Tracer twitches, seems to sink behind cover and she can't help a laugh. 

She steps into a room with wide, high ceilings, windows covered by filthy curtains: watches the shape of Tracer recoil with her every footstep. A beep then–and she knows what it means, knows it enough to curse and slink off the way she came–and Tracer blinks in front of her, trigger happy and pulse rounds spraying like fireworks in pursuit. 

"I see  _you,_ love!" 

Widowmaker hisses and tries a different direction. Her left arm is sore, her bicep grazed by pulse rounds and skin peeled back like tragic petals, flesh burnt and cauterized, stinging. Pulse rounds fly over her head still and she flattens herself on her side, firing at the zipping blue light. 

The curtains tear and fall with the gunfire. The windows explode outward, glass glinting like diamonds, the moonlight lighting up the room in spikes of silver, shadows cast by broken glass like fangs. Widowmaker's visor slides up. She gets to her feet and prepares to fire again, but Tracer kicks a desk in her direction. She reels back, pinned to the wall, Widow's Kiss flying from her hand. Tracer blinks after her. 

And when they fight, all fists and joints and blood on blood, Widowmaker feels the buzz starting at the top of her head. 

Tracer punches her in the gut and follows it up with a knee, shoves her against the wall, slams the top of her head against Widowmaker's chin. Widowmaker bleeds, tastes rust in her mouth and bile under her tongue. She grabs Tracer by the collar of her jacket and swings her like she's nothing, arms flexed and muscles bunched, watches the side of Tracer's face meet the wall. Blood is trailing down Tracer's nostrils and a cut on her forehead. Her face might bruise. 

Tracer claws at Widowmaker's arms and when she surges forward, Widowmaker twists to dodge, vertebrae clicking to allow the angle. A sound like a growl leaves Tracer as Widowmaker grabs her by the hair and tries to throw her. 

Tracer's nails drag on her neck, her chest, breaking skin, scalding like heated needles. She takes Widowmaker with her. They cling, betrayed by momentum, their own inertia turning against them as they sail across the air and land in a heap by the window. 

And it's primal, how Widowmaker clambers to straddle Tracer, hands on the underside of Tracer's jaw, pushing Tracer's head over the edge of the window. How Tracer struggles even now, digging her nails into Widowmaker's hands and grunting, blood crusty on her face and neck. 

How Widowmaker breathes heavily, chest hurting, head pounding, nerves shallow on her skin, burning like wildfire. 

"Do it then," Tracer croaks, voice thin with the pressure on her throat and jaw. "Snap my neck then throw me off of here. Kill me." 

Widowmaker does not move. Tracer's accelerator beeps its uppity little beep, but she does not move either. 

"Why don't _you_ do it?" Widowmaker asks boldly. "Blink, teleport–do what you do and kill _me_." 

Her hands retreat to make a point, settling on either side of Tracer's neck. Tracer lifts her head off the edge and looks Widowmaker in the eyes. 

In that way that makes Widowmaker's heart beat a millisecond too early, bring with it the throbs of a struggle against her anatomy. In that way that means she's thinking of–

"Amélie?" 

Widowmaker frowns. Her chest burns with an anger that flares to her throat, fills her mouth with lead, like bullets in a loaded gun cocked to fire. "Do not call me that," she answers, danger-low, nary a whisper. "Amélie is not here." 

Tracer swallows. Widowmaker's eyes observe the ripple of her throat, track the beads of sweat that run crossroads on her skin like lightning, like paths of energy pooling in the dip of her clavicles. She winds one hand around that same throat and squeezes enough to feel, enough to warn how easily she could press down and kill. Tracer feels like a blaze. 

"Amélie, you don't have to keep doing this–" 

Widowmaker's eyes snap up to meet Tracer's. " _Amélie is not here,_ " she maintains. 

Tracer's face scrunches with the disbelief, the denial, the wildfire hope that lights up her eyes with their every encounter. Widowmaker's fingers tighten around Tracer's throat. The blue of Tracer's accelerator is steady,  _charged,_ but she is not moving. 

"Amélie is not a killer,  _chérie,_ " Widowmaker whispers. A sting in her chest makes her voice come out cracked next. "Amélie is _gone_." 

She raises her fist and sends it down onto Tracer's face. The sound is ugly, loud,  _painful_ , a muted crack and Tracer's head lolls to the side, eyes closed, smacked unconscious. She goes slack under Widowmaker. Widowmaker holds her by the sides of her head and poises to twist, snap her neck,  _kill her–_

But her hands shake, and her jaw trembles, and the pain in her chest is squeezing enough to kill, noise and fury and  _gray_ , like concrete, like melted steel, seeps into the fingers that dare to reach out. 

She gets up, picks her weapon off the ground, and all the noise and pain comes back to her again. 

" _Are you done, Widow?_ " 

Widowmaker twitches, head whipping around in search until she finds it on a corner on the ceiling. Blinking purple, a security camera aimed at her. She cups her ear with the comm. 

"I–" 

" _If you are, I'll be patching Reaper in. He's pissed as hell, the poor guy. Overwatch got us in a trap,_ " she pauses meaningfully in her calm explanation, " _which I'm sure you already got, like, fifteen minutes ago._ " 

Widowmaker has only started to open her mouth when Reaper's voice comes roaring on the line with the backdrop of gunfire. " _Sombra! Have you gotten hold of Widowmaker yet? We need to get out of here!_ "

" _I got her, I got her! Widow, we're getting out like_ right now!  _I've flagged down extraction and they're only giving us fifteen seconds to get on once they swoop over!_ " 

The panic in Sombra's voice is a seamless transition to the smooth calm just moments ago. Widowmaker's head is spinning, her stomach churning unpleasantly. "Reaper, there was–" 

" _No time for that, get up now!_ " 

She rallies to the roof, taking the stairs because the elevator is on lockdown and her entire body is pulsing, medications lapsed, a burning flowing in her bloodstream. Reaper meets her halfway up and behind him follows Overwatch's Winston, roaring and thrashing like a wild animal. 

When they get to the roof, a Talon aircraft is already incoming and Widowmaker deploys her grapple. Reaper leaps to grab onto the line when the grapple connects. With a shift and a twist, Widowmaker's venom mine finds the ground. 

It explodes in poisonous purple and Winston's howls are loud, louder, then gone. Widowmaker recalls her grapple line until Reaper can climb onto the vessel, and the hands of grunts can grab hold of her and pull her up and in. She sprawls on the floors of the cabin. 

"Hurts," she wheezes, clutches her chest, breathing labored. " _Hurts–_ " 

"I know it does. I know." 

Widowmaker looks up in alarm. She only sees a glimpse of Bianchi before a needle is jammed into her neck, before her muscles turn to jelly and her bones surrender to gravity. She flops. 

"     _T   a k   h r  t o   t he   l  b  w  h n   e  g t ba c k ..._ " 

"   _Y  s  m  am ..._ " 

The world melts around her like rinsed paint. Her chest stops hurting. Her brain falls away empty.

She tries to reach out but she sees no colors and her hands are pinned down, restrained. Her eyes roll to the back of her head. 

 

***

 

 _One burn, one red, one grin_  
_Search the graves while the camera spins_

 _Chunks of you will sink down to seals_  
_Blubber rich in mourning, they'll nosh you up_  
_Yes, they'll nosh the love away but it's fair to say_  
_[You will still haunt me](https://youtu.be/Qg6BwvDcANg) _


End file.
